Many containers that are factory packaged are sealed by a tamper evident seal adhesively attached over the opening. This is typical of medicine bottles, jars of peanut butter or other food items, and even some items sold in plastic containers such as yogurt. Other industries also use similar packaging using seals; these include automotive, marine, manufacturing, chemicals, pharmaceutical & medical products, biotech, and others. These packaging containers may contain liquid, powder, or solid products. These seals may be aluminum foil, cardboard, or plastic membranes. When a screw-on cap is used, they are to be found sealing the opening underneath the cap. Although some seals have integral tabs or removal attachments, they are typically difficult to grasp and require excessive force to remove. Other seals have no removal means whatsoever leaving the consumer to improvise some apparatus and method such as using a pointed object including scissors, knife, pencil, pen, tooth brush handle, etc. Besides the inconvenience of not having such objects handy, with an aging population some of these devices are an injury hazard. They may also contaminate the very product being protected from contamination by the seal.
Among related patents include U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,311 of Butler, which discloses a cap which has an array of protruding pointed blades inside a well recess in the cap, which, when the cap is inverted, puncture the seal of the container. U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,505 of Gilliland describes a cap which has a pivotable blade that lifts up from the cap to act as a blade to puncture the seal. U.S. Pat. No. 1,100,433 of Johnson describes a toothpaste tube cap with a well in the top having a sharp spur or point, which, when the cap is inverted, punctures the seal at the top of the toothpaste tube. U.S. Pat. No. 2,771,218 of Henderson describes a similar cap which does not need to be inverted. As the cap is screwed downward on the neck of the tube, a point 15 punctures the seal at the neck of the tube.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,147 of McIntosh is similar to Johnson except it has a pointed tip, which pierces a seal at the top of a non-squeeze tube hollow container. U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,013 of Bar-Kokhba describes a small blade 32 which is inside the cap for cutting a seal and a slit 38. However, the slit is provided for liquid flow, not for piercing the seal. U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,822 of Vataru describes a child-resistant tamper-proof cap for a bottle, which has a small blade attached to the cap to puncture a seal. A similar blade in a cap is in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,582 of Art.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,024,234 of Rink and U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,198 of Wolfe each describe caps which also have a recess with a blade to puncture the seal of a tamper-proof container. U.S. Pat. No. 7,410,071 of Seib describes a cap which has a triangular blade for opening a seal.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,865,330 of Buono, D405,371 of Herr and D519,843S of Forte each describe medicine container caps with a pair of vertically extending slits, wherein between each respective pair of slits is a non-rigid, malleable flap which is inwardly compressible for release of the cap from the container.
However, the prior art patents do not disclose a medicine or other commodity holding container cap having a pair of slits wide enough to engage over the edge of the medicine or other commodity container, with a rigid section between the slits capable of urging force against the seal of the container with sufficient force to rupture the seal.